A story out of Engadget today suggests that the Surface tablet could be priced extremely competitively to get Windows 8 in the hands of as many customers as possible. Engadget’s Tim Stevens cites a source who attended a session at Microsoft’s recent TechReady15 conference which laid out Microsoft’s launch plans for the Surface. According to the report, the Tegra 3-based Surface RT will indeed launch on the expected October 26th date, and will retail for $199. This mirrors a previous Digitimes report from Friday, which suggested that Microsoft could significantly change the tablet market at a $200 price point.

Let that sink in for a moment. At $199, the Surface RT will be cheaper than almost all netbooks on the market, and will put the Surface on par with the likes of the 7″ Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 tablets. And it comes with a mostly fully featured operating system which runs nearly all the apps you’re accustomed to using. We’ve previously suggested that Windows 8 tablets will finally be able to provide Apple’s iPad meaningful competition, and at a $199 MSRP, we may just see this notion become a reality.

I’d be shocked if this was true. I’d love it, but I’d be shocked. Paul Thurrott has seen the pricing for Windows RT tablets, and he keeps hinting that the price range will be almost indentical to the iPad (ex: $500-$900). Still, if it turns out that it’s $200, I’ll be getting a Surface and a Windows Phone 8 device 🙂

If this turns out to be true, I will buy one for every day of the week.

Shanne Liszewski

and people thought the Nexus 7 sold out fast, is this is true they better manufacture hell of alot of them!!

Brandon

While I see this as highly unlikely, if it does indeed happen I share others’ sentiments: 1) They better have a whole shitload of these things at the stores 2) I will DEFINITELY be purchasing more than one.

Gregory C Newman

Folks the only way for this to happen is for Microsoft to be willing to sell “Windows Rt” Tablet computers at a tremendous loss of 200 dollars per tablet. This could be a smart move for Microsoft to sell the first batch of “Windows Surface RT Tablets” for 200 dollars for a limited amount of time that Microsoft would specify in TV commercials, News paper, magazines, Internet adds, and on the Radio. To say they would sell well is an understatement. Folks this is an old old way for a company to introduce a product to the Public. If Microsoft has the courage to do this and the Windows RT tablets work well then Microsoft will make their Name known in the Tablet market which up to now has been not much to brag about. You can buy Windows 7 tablets right now but the battery life stinks and some of the Windows 7 tablets touch response has been slow. PC fans like me hope Microsoft gets it right this time with Windows 8 and Windows RT tabets ..